


eye for an eye

by kyrilu



Category: Utopia (TV 2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:15:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27298492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: Lee doesn't believe. It's just a job, a pay packet, and the opportunity to hurt people in a variety of new ways. But with Wilson Wilson, he just might.
Relationships: Lee/Wilson Wilson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	eye for an eye

**Author's Note:**

> Years late, but god, I ship these two a lot. I want them to do terrible things to each other; I want them to do terrible things together.

**i.**

There are many stories about Mr. Rabbit. They say that he was born when he emerged from captivity, _rabbit_ carved on his stomach, bodies all around him in a sea of rot. They say that he took the numbers and the madness from Philip Carvel’s mind and turned it all into miracles.

This is the vision that defines the reality of the Network -- the dream of the rabbit and the madman -- and it eats away at everything. Governments rise and topple; leaders are installed and overthrown; plague is mass manufactured like cheap plastics. 

And two men will be sent with a bright coloured bag in hand, and that’s who Lee is. That’s where he is in this story. 

**ii.**

The eyes thing, really, is inspired by Arby.

Lee had felt that he needed his own signature style, like Arby with his blank-faced coldness, candied raisins, and that impossible question: “Where is Jessica Hyde?” Not just the gun or the gas, or the jab of a blade or well-landed bludgeon -- though he can do that, too, because what kind of professional would he be if he couldn’t? 

So he goes for the eyes, the so-called windows to the soul. 

He just had never expected to be faced with that one eye continually staring back at him, one eye whose window he tried to give a good crack but returned like reinforced glass.

**iii.**

Wilson Wilson shoots Lee clean through the eye. Maybe it’s fate or luck, but it seems to have missed the important enough parts of his brain, and Lee’s on the ground, sight halved, gasping but alive. 

Wilson looks down at him. He says, “There. Now we’re even.” 

**iv.**

This is the thing about Lee: he saw it, perhaps, before anyone else did, maybe even more than Milner did. “I reckon you could take billions,” he’d said. “But it would have to be necessary.” He believed in Wilson Wilson when Wilson Wilson didn’t believe in himself yet, and his reward is this: waking up in hospital with an eyepatch like a bright yellow tulip petal on his bedside. 

He learns how bloody difficult it is to put on the damned thing with only one functioning hand.

The door slides open. Wilson watches Lee’s struggle with that darting eye of his, the corner of his mouth pulled into a lopsided angle. He says, “It’s time to go back to work.” 

**v.**

Wilson walks around like he owns the entire city, the entire nation, the entire _world._ It’s not really what Lee had expected from the shuddering nutter in his homemade fallout shelter. 

It’s not very interesting, not at first. Wilson dives into reading Network files and having long conversations with Leah and the organization’s scientists. There is a map up in his office, pins and string strung across it, marking places and populations. Lee’s stuck waiting, a sulking one-eyed assassin on call. 

“You should let me kill her,” Lee says, for not the first time. “Don’t tell me you’ve grown soft again, Cap’n. I thought you’re past this. I was getting, well -- rather proud of you.” 

“We are not,” Wilson says, “killing Jessica Hyde.” 

She is in one of their cells again, that vicious beast of a woman. She’s tried escaping already, but that was interrupted when Wilson had ordered Lee to start cutting off Ian’s fingers. He was only a centimetre deep into a thumb when Jessica had relented and released the guard she was holding captive, her eyes watery and hateful.

“Your bait plan isn’t exactly panning out,” Lee points out.

“They’re out there,” Wilson says. His attention goes to the map. There had been a CCTV sighting of Arby and Becky a week ago, and Wilson’s been sure they’re up to something. It’s a considerable snarl in whatever scheme Wilson has in the works.

With a sigh, Lee plops himself down on a chair. “I told you about the woman and the girl, didn’t I? I could get them. Maybe it’ll make Arby come to us faster.”

“Jessica should be enough.” 

“Sure. Whatever you say.” 

A pause. Wilson says, “Be careful, Mr. Lee. You know I could’ve killed you. I could’ve shot out both your eyes and then your brains. You know I could’ve. But you’re a cog in the machine, a cog that we didn’t think needed replacing.”

Lee laughs, a short sharp chuckle. “Oh, I’m aware. But it’s adorable how you think you’ve got this all figured out. You’ve got to mean it, Wilson. Every bit of it. You can’t skimp out on this business of hostage taking.” 

“I do mean it,” Wilson says. “I’m just not a sociopathic cock who thinks that the best course of action would be to spoon out Jessica Hyde’s eyes and figure out how to send them to Pietre.” (One of Lee’s suggestions, of course.) “I’ve got other work to consider--” Wilson sweeps his hand out to the map-- “because it’s about looking at the bigger picture.” 

“Sure.” 

Wilson tilts his head to the side. “How is it you’re even here, and you don’t believe? Not even a little?” 

“Job security. Decent pay. And relaxed uniform standards means I can dress up as a pirate at my workplace.” 

“Well,” Wilson says, “maybe we’ll replace that limp hand of yours with a hook. You can run at people and scrape at them.” 

And they smile at each other, one eye boring into one eye, scarlet eyepatch flashing at mustard yellow. 

**vi.**

“Where is Arby? Or Pietre, or whatever he’s taken to calling himself now?” 

The man, bound to a chair, begins to shake. “I don’t know what this is about. I swear, that weird bloke and the Welsh girl came because she’s going through withdrawal and needed to wean off. I deal a little bit on the side, you see, but it’s nothing big. I can give you my stash, or money, or--” 

“I’m not here for your drugs or your money,” Lee tells him, reassuringly. “I just need to know where they went. Did they mention where they’re staying or going?” 

The man shakes his head. Lee sighs, and he brings the knife closer. There’s a part of him that’s disappointed that Arby has become so sloppy, leaving witnesses alive like this. Lee thought better of him. 

“Let me do it.” 

Wilson steps forward from the shadows. He straightens his hat. He had been hoping for a reunion of sorts, a laptop with a direct camera feed to Ian and Jessica’s cells tucked into Lee’s green bag. But the birdies have fled, and they’re back to square one unless they can pry more secrets from this petty criminal. 

Lee shrugs, hands Wilson the knife -- “Go on, then,” -- and takes out a cigarette. 

“Jesus,” says the man. “What is this, some kind of Popeye freakshow?”

“Popeye,” Wilson repeats. “You know, there was a secret operation named after Popeye.” He gestures to the window. “Weather is something we usually take for granted, isn’t it? The clouds and the sun and everything. It’s just nature, or the unfortunate effects of pollution-caused climate change. But, the thing is, you can purposely fuck with the rain. That’s what the American government did during the Vietnam War. They made it rain more so they could mess with their enemy’s environment.

“Our government did it, too. Project Cumulus. They were testing cloud seeding for military purposes, and it wiped out a village in Devon in the 50s.” 

“Fascinating,” Lee says, dryly, the cigarette unlit between his lips. 

Wilson ignores him. “My point is that we can do anything if we put our minds to it. We can change the way the world works. We can bend nature itself. But we can’t let ourselves be stopped by concerns like collateral--international opposition--and in our case, annoying fugitives on the run. Mr. Clarke--” was that the man’s name? Lee never bothers to remember these often--”you’ll tell us everything you know. What clothes they were wearing. Which direction they came from and which way they headed. Every little detail in their conversation.” 

The knife is silver in the light. This job is to be framed as a failed drug deal, one of Clarke’s customers snapping in a fit of frenzied rage. Outside, rain falls, and Lee clicks on his lighter and exhales smoke like storm clouds. 

**vii.**

Lee is waiting in the car while Wilson finishes staging the scene, pills and powders scattered on the carpeted floor. On the way back to base, Lee hums the Popeye theme song out loud, and Wilson lets out a rough low laugh. 

**viii.**

It’s a good look on him. It really is. In Wilson’s office, Lee studies the blood covering him. Dried red splatter on his dark suit, so dark that you could barely see it. 

Lee says, “You did so well.” And he reaches out, and he touches the side of Wilson’s face. “Some days, I think a lot about how I could take out your other eye. I could scrape it out with my fingers. I could burn it out with my lighter. It’s a different kind of burning than the chilis, the sand, the bleach.” 

“I’m not afraid of you, Lee,” Wilson says. His gaze is steady and cool, and yes, Lee sees, he isn’t scared. Wilson’s beard is prickly-soft underneath Lee’s fingertips, his thumb hovering by Wilson’s mouth. His jaw pulses once, twice, the moment on anticipatory tenterhooks. 

“May I?” Lee asks, his eyelid flickering. “I know my place, Sir Captain, I do. Let me. Pretty please.” 

Wilson says, “Get down--get on your knees,” and alright, if that’s how he wants it. Lee sinks down and he does. 

**ix.**

Lee traces the scarred character, _rabbit_ , on Wilson’s stomach. He laughs and says, “You, Wilson? You -- Mr. Rabbit?” and Wilson scowls, but he lets Lee touch it, over and over again, all those lines and curves. 

“You didn’t have to,” Lee says. “First off, your age is all wrong. No one would ever believe you’re the real Mr. Rabbit. Not the one who’s been running this place for decades.” 

“It’s not about that,” Wilson says. “I had to let the legend live.” 

**x.**

There are many stories about Mr. Rabbit. They say that he was born when his eyes were burnt out and blinded, screaming and screaming in searing pain, and then he finally _saw._ They say that he took the remnants of the Network and remade it into his image; the dream and the magic refined. 

He will stride forward, eyepatch-adorned and unfaltering. At his heel, there is a monster in a sharp suit, cigarette lit orange on the end, ready to attack on command.

He brings with him that promise of utopia. You will believe it, and you’ll give him the world. 


End file.
